Your Ticket To Omnichannel Success: Centralizing Commerce Platforms to Strengthen Customer Relationships

Today’s customers interact with brands across multiple touchpoints. They expect a seamless and personalized experience regardless of where they choose to shop — in-store, online, or mobile. Customer journeys are increasingly non-linear, and the ability to drive value and convenience across paths to purchase has become a strong differentiator. Read on for exclusive RIS research that benchmarks the current state of unified commerce platforms across the industry, and pinpoints where your peers are investing to create meaningful connections with customers. There is very little variation in how retailers view unified commerce with 77% believing it means a “seamless experience and consistent data” (Figure 1). More than half consider it to provide a shopping experience on a single platform and the ability to have a personalized shopping experience across channels (57% and 53%, respectively). When defining unified commerce, few (13%) consider the back-end benefits such as easier tracking of data, KPIs, and performance. It appears most retailers understand the benefits of unified commerce since most retail organizations are at least working toward delivering a unified experience across channels, with 60% categorizing their organization as “a work in progress,” while almost a quarter (23%) are at least “close to providing a truly unified experience” (Figure 2). Retailers have room to improve their customers’ experience with only 3% currently providing a “truly unified experience.” With most retailers at least working toward offering a unified customer experience, over six in ten (64%) are invested in the unified commerce space, with 30% being very/extremely invested (Figure 3). Only 6% of retailers are not invested. Once buy-in or investment in the unified commerce space is established, retailers need to consider the ideal composition of the platform. More than a third (37%) envision a platform pieced together using the best components available — a “composable, best-of-breed ecosystem approach” (Figure 4), while over a quarter (27%) think that an all-inclusive platform would be the best option (“all-in-one platform from a single vendor”). Other retailers (20%) would select a standard commerce platform requiring small customizations and the choice of 17% of retailers would be a fully customized platform built “from the ground up.” Retailers recognize there are several elements significant to customers as they shop. For almost six in ten (57%) retailers, a consistent experience across channels is top two in importance for their customers (Figure 5). Related to the overall experience, 30% of retailers think their customers place very high importance on consistent pricing and promotions across channels, eliminating the need to price check across a retailer’s channels. Product availability and faster checkout are also important aspects of an ideal shopping experience of retailers’ customers, while retailers think they place less importance on loyalty programs, return policies, personalized selling, and availability of in-store tablets. Unified commerce platforms also allow retailers to offer their customers a more personalized shopping experience. As more than half work toward offering their customers an integrated shopping experience across available channels, personalization capabilities shouldn’t be ignored. Personalized marketing and digital advertising (57%), personalized recommendations (50%), and personalized offers available at digital touchpoints (46%) are retailers’ top personalization capabilities (Figure 6). However, it seems more difficult to offer it in the stores with only 18% currently able to make personalized offers available at store touchpoints. Fewer retailers have capabilities related to the connection of platforms and channels. Only 21% have identity matching capabilities across platforms, while less than one in five (18%) have the ability to personalize content/images across all their channels. Investments in point-of-sale (POS) platforms is likely necessary for most retailers as they work toward unified commerce. Over half (54%) of retailer respondents desire an extremely flexible checkout platform, but only 10% of retailer respondents say they currently offer that level of flexibility (Figure 7). In fact, almost one in five (17%) characterize their current POS platform as having very little or no flexibility. Retailers who know their customers can more easily provide a consistently optimal shopping experience across channels. The capability of building a single customer view helps retailers more efficiently learn about their customers by keeping data on shopping habits and product preferences, gathered from different channels, in one place. Almost half (47%) of retailers use a customized single data platform to build single views of customers across channels, while one in ten (10%) opt for an off-the-shelf customer data platform (Figure 8). Despite the value of easily accessible single customer views, a third (33%) of retailer respondents do not currently have the capability to build single views of their customers across channels. Although uniform commerce platforms offer a variety of capabilities, retailer respondents say that POS and e-commerce are the most important with 74% and 59%, respectively, saying they are top two in importance (Figure 9). Few find other capabilities including order management systems (OMS), inventory, product information management, workforce management, payment gateway, and content management system as important to their organizations. Many of the retail respondents do not consider workforce management to be an important unified commerce platform capability with almost two-thirds (64%) rating it as least important (ranked as last two). Unified commerce platforms provide a host of benefits in building customer relationships, but most retailers (76%) consider a seamless shopping experience to be one of the top two most important benefits (Figure 10). Over six in ten (61%) also find a 360-degree view of the customer to be a key advantage despite a third of retailers not having this capability available to them. Significantly fewer retailer respondents consider increased basket size and reduced time spent on integration / maintenance to be important benefits. With continuous advancements in technology, upgrading unified commerce capabilities is vital in providing customers an optimal shopping experience. Most have upgraded or are in the process of upgrading real-time order and inventory visibility across channels (80%) and unified pricing and promotions (76%) (Figure 11). Retailers also appear to appreciate the importance of learning about their customers as many have at least started major upgrades to capabilities related to data driven insights (67%) and unified customer views across channels (63%). Clienteling and virtual assistance are capabilities few / no retailers have upgraded, with over four in ten (41%) and a third (33%), respectively, having no plans to do so. However, over half (57%) of retailers have plans to upgrade virtual assistance capabilities within the next 24 months. Methodology This study was conducted from June 16 through the end of June with targeted retail executives from both large- and small-scale retail chains. Almost half (47%) of respondents work at retail companies with at least $1 billion in annual revenues, and over a third (37%) have more than $5 billion (Figure 12). Respondents were recruited across Specialty (30%), Grocery/Convenience/Drug (23%), Mass market/General Merchandise/Discount (20%), and Apparel (20%) retail segments, with 7% categorizing themselves as “Other” (Figure 13). Almost half (47%) of respondents work in IT/Technology (Figure 14), with over half (53%) having a job title of Vice President or higher (Figure 15) and a third (33%) are Directors. Conclusion As technology advances, retailers have more opportunities to connect with their customers through various channels, offering them the convenience of shopping “anywhere at any time.” Customers are looking for a consistent shopping experience regardless of the channel they choose. Most retailers understand the importance of making that seamless experience available to their customers, but few are currently equipped to deliver it. However, there are many retailers working toward that goal by starting or upgrading their unified commerce technologies. To remain competitive, retailers will need to gain momentum in creating their ideal unified commerce environment. Key Findings For most retailer respondents (77%), unified commerce means a “seamless experience and consistent data.” Only 3% of retailers are currently providing a “truly unified experience” with most at different stages of working towards that goal — 60% are a “work in progress” and 23% are “close to providing a truly unified experience.” Less than a third (30%) of retailers describe their organizations as being very or extremely invested in the unified commerce space. A third (33%) do not have single views of their customers available to them, but most retailers overall (61%) consider a 360-degree view of customers an important unified commerce platform benefit. POS and e-commerce are by far the two most important unified commerce platform capabilities among retailers with 74% and 59% rating them as top two in importance, respectively. The significance of e-commerce capabilities is further emphasized as most retailers (76%) rate “seamless shopping experience (anywhere, anytime)” as a top two unified commerce platform benefit.